People Say I Run Angry | The Players’ Tribune

Josh Jacobs is a football racer for the Oakland Raiders. He played college football in Alabama. Jacobs attended McLain High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. During his career in high school, he had 5,372 yards and 56 touchdowns. He engaged with the University of Alabama to play college football.

The Oakland Raiders selected Jacobs in the first round (24 total) of the 2019 NFL Draft. The selection was originally acquired from the Chicago Bears in an exchange that sent Khalil Mack to Chicago.

It was not easy for Jacobs to get where he is. In fact, he himself has expressed how difficult his life has been. Previously it did not matter what happened, for him, it was just one more day in the life. In fact, he has said, “I will never forget the nights I spent in the back of that suburban. I will never forget the motels. The shots. The helicopters. I know what it is to be scared. To be hungry. Not having anything in my future but uncertainty”.

A difficult road

Jacobs had a difficult path. Both starting in football and in his life. Even so, he says “Football was not an escape. I did not play to get rid of my frustrations, neither to face nor to stay away from the streets. I played because I loved it”.

In the beginning, he had such ridiculous statistics that when his coach sent them to the local newspaper every week, they did not even print them. They did not believe them since they thought that their coach was filling in their statistics in order to make it look good. Meanwhile, he sat down and watched other children with less impressive statistics get their names in the newspaper and win all kinds of weekly prizes.

It should be noted that Jacobs does not believe he considered the NFL a possibility until the SEC championship game last year against Georgia.

Still, nothing has stopped him and in this way, he expresses firmly, “I run for my parents, the man who sacrificed so much and worked so hard to provide me and educate me. I run for my three-year-old son, Braxton, so he can have a father he’s proud of as if he’s proud of mine. I run for my sister and my three brothers. I run for my teammates and my coaches. I run for all those who have supported me, for those who doubted me and for those who live with white rice and ramen noodles. I run for anyone who is in a difficult situation and feels that it will never end, that there is no light at the end of the tunnel”.